But Sigurd spake: “Hail
father! I am girt with the fateful sword
And my face is set to the
highway, and I come for thy latest word.”
Said Gripir: “What wouldst thou hearken ere we sit and drink the wine?”
“Thy word and the Norns’,” said Sigurd, “but never a word of mine.”
“What sights wouldst
thou see,” said Gripir, “ere mine hand
shall take
thine hand?”
“As the Gods would I
see,” said Sigurd, “though Death light
up the
land.”
“What hope wouldst thou
hope, O Sigurd, ere we kiss, we twain, and
depart?”
“Thy hope and the Gods’,”
said Sigurd, “though the grief lie hard on
my heart.”
Nought answered the ancient
wise-one, and not a whit had he stirred
Since the clash of Sigurd’s
raiment in his mountain-hall he heard;
But the ball that imaged the
earth was set in his hand grown old;
And belike it was to his vision,
as the wide-world’s ocean rolled,
And the forests waved with
the wind, and the corn was gay with the
lark,
And the gold in its nether
places grew up in the dusk and the dark,
And its children built and
departed, and its King-folk conquered and
went,
As over the crystal image
his all-wise face was bent:
For all his desire was dead,
and he lived as a God shall live,
Whom the prayers of the world
hath forgotten, and to whom no hand may
give.
But there stood the mighty
Volsung, and leaned on the hidden Wrath;
As the earliest sun’s
uprising o’er the sea-plain draws a path
Whereby men sail to the Eastward
and the dawn of another day,
So the image of King Sigurd
on the gleaming pavement lay.
Then great in the hall fair-pillared
the voice of Gripir arose,
And it ran through the glimmering
house-ways, and forth to the sunny
close;
There mid the birds’
rejoicing went the voice of an o’er-wise King
Like a wind of midmost winter
come back to talk with spring.
But the voice cried:
“Sigurd, Sigurd! O great, O early born!
O hope of the Kings first
fashioned! O blossom of the morn!
Short day and long remembrance,
fair summer of the North!
One day shall the worn world
wonder how first thou wentest forth!
“Arise, O Sigurd, Sigurd!
In the night arise and go,
Thou shalt smite when the
day-dawn glimmers through the folds of
God-home’s
foe:
“There the child in
the noon-tide smiteth; the young King rendeth
apart,
The old guile by the guile
encompassed, the heart made wise by the
heart.
“Bind the red rings,
O Sigurd; bind up to cast abroad!
That the earth may laugh before
thee rejoiced by the Waters’ Hoard.
“Ride on, O Sigurd,
Sigurd! for God’s word goes forth on the wind,
And he speaketh not twice
over; nor shall they loose that bind:
But the Day and the Day shall
loosen, and the Day shall awake and
arise,
And the Day shall rejoice
with the Dawning, and the wise heart learn
of the wise.